I always knew I wanted to make films, but just didn't quite know how to start. I was making little short films with my friends but I wasn't quite sure how to put those pieces together for myself.
Meera MenonI'd like them [people] to leave thinking about the challenges women face in the workforce, but more importantly to really feel the emotional highs and lows of those challenges - to have really experienced that unsettling place where ambition crosses over into something else entirely.
Meera MenonI applied [to film school] figuring, "I need to find some structure for myself. I need to find a way to figure out what kind of filmmaker I want to be." And that is what film school provides you with. It'll teach you the basics of how a production works and the technical side of how to put everything together, but you could also learn that by working on film sets.
Meera MenonThrough this experience [of makimg movies], I recognized what an extraordinary set of personality traits it takes to be able to succeed in that world, and I was really drawn to the character work we could build with actors as a result.
Meera MenonWhen I was a teenager, I thought I wanted to be an actor. I worked on an Indian soap opera that was my first exposure to production. But I quickly became disillusioned by acting and seeing that in the movies I loved and the TV I loved, no one looked like me. There weren't going to be any leading roles that would be interested in casting someone with my face.
Meera MenonWhen I got into film school, it really formed a sense of who I am and my sense of feeling like an outsider. If there was some greater purpose to do this, it would be so that future generations - my kids or my sister's kids - would grow up seeing themselves in their media culture in a way that I didn't. If The Mindy Project or Master of None were on when I was growing up, I wonder if I would be interested in doing this at all
Meera Menon